Travel Writing Tips

Being an prolific and effective travel writer can be overwhelming, so I’ve put together this series of A-Z Travel Writing Tips.

Each article provides a concise list of prompts from A to Z, which provides your travel writing the TLC it needs. We cycle through all letters in the alphabet in turn, and provide links to additional resources and examples of how to implements each tip.

See the grid at the bottom of this post to view other letters in the series.

In this edition of our A-Z travel writing tips we’re looking at Focus, Facts and Flow.

is for Focus

Your travel writing article needs to have a central focus. It could be a specific event, a cultural implication, or any theme that runs through your story.

For example in this year’s NatGeo travel writing competition Sarah Gillespie wrote about female wrestlers, but the theme of the story was about the indigenous people of Bolivia reclaiming their power, and her article includes examples to support that theme. Sarah used a mix of broad and narrow focus to illustrate your point to add interest and context to her story. The female wrestler anecdote was used to support the broader theme of her winning article.

You can start broad and go narrow, or start narrow and broaden your perspective to incorporate other anecdotes or narratives to support the key focus of your article. Either way you need to master the art of content flow to link the individual elements.

is for Facts

Weave facts seamlessly through your content, because if you drop all the statistics in the same paragraph you’ll end up sounding like a wikipedia entry.

Travel facts are the building blocks of all travel guides and some types of travel article, but presenting them in an interesting way can be challenging. To create an engaging read, you’ll need to do two things:

1. Choose the right facts, and
2. Incorporate them within your text so they flow

You’ll always end up with a lot more research material than you need to use, and may have an overwhelming desire to include it all. But don’t fall into the trap of stuffing every single fact into your travel writing.

Your readers will thank you for being selective and only including details that add value and serve a purpose. Plus, even though your reader is buying your book or reading your article to learn about a destination, you want to leave some things for them to discover for themselves. Less can sometimes be more. When you seamlessly weave facts within your content, your readers will absorb facts more naturally.

Travel guides will include entries about destinations, businesses, sights, activities etc. and each of these entries will include a synopsis and key facts, contact information and/or links to more information. The length of the entries will vary depending on the subject or level of importance you’re placing on it, but aim for a consistent approach throughout your book or article.

For example, if you’re including accommodation options in your guides, you could include an icon system ($, $$, $$$) to show whether the hotel was budget, midrange, or expensive, and add a URL to direct readers to the hotel’s website.

Each of your entries can comprise basic facts (e.g. for a museum that would include opening times and entry fee), but can also include a summary of its highlights, importance, relevance etc., and additional information (e.g. how to get there, nearest metro, nearby restaurants) that make your reader’s life easier.

is for Flow

Your travel writing topics should move from one subject to the next with an easy rhythm and flow. Read your content aloud and see if there are words or sentences that you stumble over, or slow you down. These are the areas you should eliminate altogether by replacing them with different words or sentence structure.

It may take you a couple of rounds of editing to fine-tune your content’s rhythm and flow as it moves from one topic to the next. But during your fine-tuning phase read your content out loud or use text to speech function to listen to your content. I can read text multiple times and miss an obvious error, but as soon as I hear an audio version of my text the issues jump out.

Your anecdotes and travel narratives are self-contained stories that have characters (it may only be you), dialogue, pace, and maybe a bit of drama. All of these elements need to be developed and organized to flow and hold your reader’s attention. The last thing you want to write is a boring story.
You can use the journalistic approach of the 5 Ws and 1H to make sure you’ve developed your narrative into a complete story:

• Who was involved?
• What happened?
• Where did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?

When writing about your first hand experience of a destination, event, or adventure, you’ll probably have more source material than is necessary so trim the fat to create pace within your narrative or anecdote to keep it engaging.

Discover an alphabet’s worth of Travel Writing Tips

Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast
Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast	Read the Article Listen to the Podcast
K	L	M	N	O
P	Q	R	S	T
U	W	X	X	Y
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